Medical schools hire actors to pretend to have certain ailments. Medical students then attempt to diagnose those afflictions. Ryan Jones, a medical student at the University of Virginia, examined one of them, Jim Malloy.

Malloy was pretending to have an aortic aneurysm. Jones noticed that he was doing a very convincing job of it. He showed all of the symptoms of an actual aortic aneurysm.

Sometimes medical schools hire people who have real medical problems in order to make these simulations more realistic. But this was not one of those times. Jones informed the attending physician, who suggested that Malloy get further tests.

Malloy did so and later had surgery to correct the problem in his heart. By calling early attention to the problem, the medical student had saved his life.